


learn from old epics

by summerstorm



Category: Scandal (TV)
Genre: Comment Fic, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-11 00:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Making excuses would just draw attention to them, so they don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	learn from old epics

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt asking for election night. Technically it asked for actual Fitz/Olivia, but this happened instead. Title from Maryann Corbett.

Making excuses would just draw attention to them, so they don't. Besides, the night is as exciting as it is stressful, and there's no question as to why Governor Grant would need a break. Olivia's absence, however, may be less noticeable, but also harder to explain, so she sneaks out last and back in first, eyes glancing from the big screen set up at the end of the room to her own phone. She's ready to smile and make small talk when a senator lightly touches her arm to get her attention as she walks by. Nobody's really looking at the doors.

Nobody's looking at the doors, that is, except Mellie Grant, who catches Olivia's eye off a corner of the screen, who holds Olivia's gaze for two seconds before she goes back to shaking hands.

What Olivia feels when Mellie looks at her isn't guilt. It isn't guilt at all. Olivia didn't make a commitment; Olivia isn't cheating on anyone. She just feels unsettled, off-kilter, because there's this one loose cannon which is not only out of her control but which she barely understands at best. 

Sometimes she considers talking to Mellie, putting it all on the table. She has a feeling Mellie would take the affair along with the presidency, if it was a choice between both or none. Olivia doesn't know what she'd do in that situation, but Mellie might even have accounted for the possibility, made contingency plans. Over the course of the campaign, Mellie's done things Olivia would never have asked of her, of anyone. Mellie's ruthlessly manipulated her image and given herself to the cause. Mellie's not stupid. Far from it.

But the only way Olivia could confirm her suspicions would confirm any of Mellie's, and that's not a risk she's willing to take.


End file.
